2018 / Interactive Kinetic Installation 

Spherical structure with 35 umbrellas, 300 cm diameter 

  
SURFACE X is a kinetic installation which reacts to the presence of visitors. 

It‘s a spherical structure with 35 umbrellas. Initially, all umbrellas are opened and create a huge black formation, that surpasses the human being by far. But as soon as a visitor approaches the installation, the umbrellas shy away in a fraction of a second and close themselves. When SURFACE X is pressed by several people, all umbrellas close so that only the skeleton remains standing. It takes a while until all umbrellas open up again. 

  
Exhibited at: 

• the Ars Electronica Festival 2018 in Linz (AT) 

• the Castle in Dachau (DE) in 2018 

  
https://picaroon.eu/surface-x.php

SURFACE X

These are photos from a performance piece titled 'Returning where a dancer experiences the struggle, joy, and spiritual metamorphosis of unzipping his second skin to see, carry and sense himself from the outside. 

This was a 50/50 collaboration between amazing choreographer, performer and dancer; Nitsan Margaliot and myself (Manuela Benaim) a textile and silicone making artist. 

This piece brought to life the concept behind the "Second Skin Series" I made the year before, and it was the most challenging and rewarding piece from this collection.  The textile art consists of a silicone layer that captures Nitsan's skin detail and shape, and painted to match the models body.  Nitsan and I worked together in the making of the suit, having multiple studio visits where I learnt more about his body and how to create his second skin version.  I had to design ways in which Nitsan could come in and of his silicone skin easily and for it to be both flexible and strong to endure the performance.  In the process of the making, he worked on the choreography of performance.  This performance consisted of a series of movements in which the dancer was coming in and out of his skin and experiencing what that looks like, phisically, metaphorically and emotionally. That explains the title of the collaboration. 

'Returning' premiered at the Frankfurt LAB, Germany in November 2019.  

Photographer: De-Da Productions.

Returning, a collaboration between artist Manuela Benaim and dancer Nitsan Margaliot

Sampling of portfolio

**Identify is more than what we wear; It's the unseen battles we face. In my painting ‘Shifting Identity’ I portray two women in hijab, one perched above and another below, holding a plate filled with blood that drips from her eyes. Yet the blood never reaches the woman underneath. Identity is shaped by unseen battles.**

  
**In the silence of our struggles, identity is not defined by what the world sees, but by the unseen battles that shape us. "Shifting Identity" captures the duality of our inner world—the woman above bears the weight of her pain, her tears turned to blood, yet her essence does not stain the soul beneath. It is a reminder that our strength is often hidden, layered beneath the surface, and that true identity is forged in the quiet resilience of enduring the unspoken.**

Shifting Identity 2024

A woman sitting in a fake wagon of a train, where we can appreciate another woman and a man sitting in the back. The interiors are green, there are some empty benches. In the front, we can see a chicken. 

Voy·Age

Portraiture, figurative, still life

2013 / Interactive Light and Music Installation

7 interactive pyramids with a size of 75x75x90 cm each

  
Global Sounds celebrates the enrichment that occurs when different people, ideas and cultures come together.

  
The installation consists of 7 pyramids. If a person approaches a pyramid, an instrument begins to play inside it, visually accompanied by a play of light. When another visitor approaches another pyramid, a second instrument joins in - until, through the interaction of at least seven people, the complete composition and play of light can finally be experienced.

The different instruments such as the bagpipe or the djembe represent the diversity of cultures. For the composition, Picaroon worked together with the Munich composer Theresa Zaremba.

  
Exhibited at:

• the Kunstareal-Fest 2023 in Munich (DE)

• the Aurora Light Fest 2015 in Dallas (USA)

• the Ars Electronica Festival 2013 in Linz (AT)

• the Grassmarket 2013 in Edinburgh (UK)

  
https://picaroon.eu/global-sounds.php

Global Sounds

2014 / Interactive Light and Music Installation 

7 cylinders with a height of 140 cm. 

  
Tangible Orchestra is an interactive light and sound installation that combines electronic and classical music perceived very individually in a three-dimensional space. Single units are triggered by people in close proximity and play a unique instrument, with the collection of individual instruments gathering as people congregate in the project space, eventually creating a complete musical work. 

  
Depending on the positioning of the listener and the instruments currently active, the musical piece is perceived differently every time, as one can walk through the installation like through an orchestra playing. As electronic music is usually composed and arranged at the mixing desk, the installation creates the illusion of an orchestra playing a music piece that relies heavily on digitally created sounds and therefore could not be perceived this way. 

  
Exhibited at 

• the GSC in Glasglow (UK) 

• the 3D Printshow in London (UK) 

• the Royal Mile in Edinburgh (UK) 

  
https://picaroon.eu/tangible-orchestra.php

Tangible Orchestra

2022 / Interactive Light and Music Installation 

1 table with a typewriter and 32 light objects with the size of 40-200 cm 

  
Take Comfort pays homage to the poem of the same name by British poet Roger McGough and celebrates the magical power of literature as a source of comfort, support, and inspiration. 

The large-scale installation consists of a table with an old typewriter and 32 luminous objects. Initially, the atmosphere is dark and tense and no object is lit. But as soon as a visitor sits down at the table and begins to write on the typewriter, the atmosphere changes and unfolds a feeling of comfort. 

  
While a person is typing, the interactive music shifts from tense to a warm and inviting mood, while each typed letter illuminates a light object, creating a beautiful play of light. Therefore, the comfort of the written word can be experienced by all other visitors around. 

  
https://picaroon.eu/take-comfort.php

Take Comfort

'Wildfire' is an eco-horror, four-channel video film/installation exploring the internalized tension between listening and seeing. Four silent videos of individual women screaming at different intervals are projected onto separate cloth sheets out in nature. The jarring, repetitive videos of over-blown faces in emotional distress create a feeling of cognitive dissonance within the viewer, which calls for the spectator to meditate on their emotions as the distressing visuals do not match the seemingly peaceful environment.

Wildfire

Queen Victoria

monkey

Each physical place has its own story. Each space that is part of our experience, comes to our mind not only with its architecture, but also with the personal memories of the lives that were lived there. Memories, with their evocative power, are an undeniable testimony of these past lives, which, re-lived with all the dramas, complexities and illusions of the present, will become future memories. They are unrepeatable instants of time that we keep in our hearts because we perceive places in relation to the memories we have of them

la memoria del segno 

When Love united love hopes to engage the viewer in feelings of unified love. Created during 2020 Rebecca, intended to create joyful work evoking feelings of connection, harmony and humanity.

When love united love

Title: The Trace of Fallen Tears
Dimensions: 40x60 cm 
Material: Fine art Photo paper
Year created: 2019

As individuals, we are not forced. But to a certain extent, we are being convinced as members of a ruled group, unrelated to age, gender, or political preferences, distilled in the simplicity of a designed shape, to work for a certain purpose. 
The philosophy of time is the edge of fiction and reality. For instance, photography is a technique to capture an instant, actually, it’s the only tool that generates that feeling of stopping the moment when something specific is happening. This perception of MOMENT, captured in a device is related to our eye; writing with light, becomes a thought put into images that define a moment, a microsecond of time in our mind. This moment that is created in our mind is free to be conceptualized by other people, as time itself.


The Trace of Fallen Tears 

Title: The Time of Denial
Dimensions: 40x60 cm 
Material: Fine art Photo paper
Year created: 2019

As I can recall one of the most important gifts that I received as a child was my first watch, and it was precisely to understand and to learn to read the time. In this way, time was no longer ruled just by day and night, or light and darkness but by a specific number, set dial. The deal was not just about learning time, but also about education and respect and eventually “succeeding in life”. 
Anyhow time goes way further than perception and in the same way, it’s nothing more than just a way of living it, depending on what coordinate you’re located at the moment.  
Time relates to so many factors and elements that we neglect just to live more relaxed. Age turned out to be an important  common denominator. In a physical activity that our body reacts to the time, we have lived and the way our eyes catch images and the way of processing them in order to give us a mind felt perception of how time passes in our “insignificant” life. 


The Time of Denial 

Title: Eternal State of Mind
Dimensions: 40x60 cm 
Material: Fine art Photo paper
Year created: 2019
 

Mazapanes en Agosto refers to a part of our culture and as A. Köhler would say, in a way it represents an alteration of our natural rhythm. Starting with globalization, global warming, agriculture, the winter becoming warmer, and the variation of weather cycles to later months, society decides to already sell Christmas Time in August.
Global warming is the reaction of nature to a series of decisions made by a group of thinking brains that meet in a thought that gives them the guideline to act in a common achievement which is a ‘working’ economy.   
Time has been an important element/concept in multiple senses that influences society and an important part of my life, as it reflects momentary feelings of disagreement with my surroundings. Society is a group of people that follows a rhythm of living and perception of life ruled by time. As we perceive this feeling of pursuing time as individuals, we also learn it from different cultures.


Eternal State of Mind

Retrospect

Grating

Militant (After Maria Eichhorn

Untitled

Pastoral Care of ______________

I was born with a church inside my body

Sham

Billboard Series

Matrimonial Table (Sculpture and Performance)

Labyrinth

Little Russia/

They who have to leave their homes/
Will build a new one/
And it will remind them/
Of the old one/

What can you take with you/
To represent /
who you are externally/
So it communicates/
who you are internally?/


Little Russia

Drawing further inspiration from travels through Northumberland whilst in Berlin lockdown.

Northern Roads 10

Shizuka (Japanese for "silence") tells the tale of a remote island that is rumoured to have wish-granting powers. In order for your wish to come true, you must live on the island for a year, making the same wish every day. On top of that, speaking or writing is forbidden on the island, meaning that the inhabitants (and their agendas) remain totally unknown to each other. Shizuka is a film about how far people will go to get what they want.

Inspired by a trip to the islands of Matsushima, Japan, where I found myself completely alone except for old statues. Shot documentary style on a Panasonic 100-B in Matsushima.

Shizuka

Music video for amazing South London band United Vibrations

https://vimeo.com/38705631

MY WAY

Short documentary about a Japanese stall holder with a unique skill

https://vimeo.com/18349454

The Candy Man of Asakusa

In the city that never sleeps, the party never dies.

Semi autobiographical black comedy about the Tokyo underground party scene.

https://vimeo.com/30668997

KICHIGAI

A documentary promoting one of London's best kept secrets.

https://vimeo.com/65456751

A Journey Through Ropewalk Market

This summer I filmed and edited the official Secret Garden Party promo video for Juju Films. It was a blast - literally! Without a doubt one of the best festivals I've ever been to.... this is a serious party!

https://vimeo.com/78247701

Secret Garden Party 2012 Official Video

Currently submitted to several international film festivals.

Vantar (Icelandic for “missing”) is a modern fable in which the human race mysteriously vanishes, leaving no trace except for piles of clothes. In the perfect stillness of the world left behind, one man finds himself unscathed, yet completely alone. Hiking through the empty city of London, he searches for any other survivors, and the reason why everyone has gone.

https://vimeo.com/49038968

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